A Season in the Country: 1975 in the Wimmera and Farrer Leagues – Episode 15

 

 

Lockhart Football Ground

 

 

Episode 15                              Rats chased hard by Panthers     

 

Featuring Ararat’s Garry Todd

 

The Wimmera League

 

 

            Panthers       v        Rats                                     

 

 

Match of the day: Rupanyup v Ararat

 

Saturday 26th July 1975

 

at Rupanyup

 

In episode 12 we travelled to Rupanyup, the venue for this week’s match of the day. Therefore we will look at the visitor’s home town in this episode.

 

Ararat is the first Wimmera League town you encounter when travelling westwards from Melbourne on the Western Highway. The town lies between the Pyrenees and the Grampians where wine and bushwalking country transitions to wheat and wool growing as you head north west. It has the unique history of being the only Australian town founded and developed by Chinese gold miners. The town is named after Mount Ararat, located 10 km to the south west.

 

Football in the gold mining town of Ararat dates to 1871, just 13 years after the Australian game commenced in Melbourne. Ararat was one of the four inaugural members of the Wimmera District Football Association formed in 1902. It had great success in the pre-war years, winning seven premierships and claimed its eighth flag when football resumed in 1920. In 1924 Ararat controversially moved to the Ballarat competition where it remained for five seasons.  In 1929 the club re-joined the Wimmera District competition, but not before it was forced to serve a 12 month waiting period. The scenario of Ararat being enticed by the Ballarat League was almost repeated in 1975.

 

When the Wimmera League commenced in 1937 Ararat was one of the original clubs and has remained in the competition ever since. The golden era for the club was in the mid fifties when it won four successive premierships (1955-‘58). In all, the Rats have won 11 WFL senior premierships, a record surpassed by only one Wimmera League club, Horsham.

 

Readers might like to see an excellent collection of Ararat team photos dating back to 1891. Go to them Here.

 

There is a long list of favourite sons and notable VFL/AFL players of the Ararat Football Club, but some of the more prominent names include: Barry Price (Collingwood), Barry Grinter (Essendon) and Daryl Peoples (Fitzroy).

 

 

Preview

 

The question of whether Ararat would defect to the neighbouring Ballarat League or remain in the Wimmera was finally answered.  After six months of negotiations, the club’s committee of 12 voted unanimously to stay in the Wimmera League. A major reason given for the decision was the prohibitively high cost of buying players to be a competitive force in the stronger Ballarat competition. In the end, economics outweighed geography. Now, there was football business for the Rats to focus on with a big opportunity to claim their second flag since the dynasty years of 1955-58.

 

Readers of the Wimmera Mail-Times were given a probable reason for Jeparit’s fall from the top of the ladder in recent weeks – tiredness. The farmer-footballers of the wheatbelt club had spent up to 16 hours a day on “bumpy tractors … preparing and sowing land.” The Horsham press predicted Jeparit would prevail over Minyip, Stawell would be far too good for Nhill, Dimboola were favoured to defeat Warracknabeal and Horsham should win a close one against Murtoa. In our match of the day, Ararat were tipped to easily account for the struggling Rupanyup.

 

 

The teams

 

Rupanyup

 

B:            A. Tyler, B. Deutscher, M. McGregor

HB:        G. Isbel, L. Young, B. Bywater

C:            D. Matthews, G. Tyler, A. Baker

HF:         I. Matheson, D. Oram, R. carter

F:            J. Murphy, T. Tyler, G. Young

Foll:       K. Newall, G. Brandt (c)

Rov:      R. Trounce

 

 

Ararat

 

B:            P. Dohnt, I. Clark, D. Stephens

HB:        P. Gemmola, D. Waterson, M. Robinson

C:            G. Homburg, W. Dickerson(c), T. Harrison

HF:         G. Harry, I. Boyd, T. Mooney

F:            C. Davies, G. Todd, B. Olver

Foll:       H. Holz, T. Davis

Rov:      G. Kent

 

 

The match

 

In one of their best performances of the season the young Rupanyup side battled on against the odds and forced the Rats to fight for their lives. The Panthers’ injury list grew with the loss of two more players during the match, but the youngsters fought on bravely in a spirited performance. Although the final result was 45 points, it was no measure of the closeness of the contest in the wind affected game. For the winners, Garry Todd kicked five goals taking his season tally to 59. Best for Ararat were ruckman Terry Davis and captain coach Wilf Dickerson. For Rup, their standout player was the versatile David Oram who took on the challenges in the centre and across the half forward line.

 

With the win Ararat looked forward to meeting Dimboola at home in the next round, while Rupanyup were matched against the improving Minyip.

 

 

Final score: Ararat 18.19 (127) defeated Rupanyup 12.10 (82)

 

 

Around the Wimmera League grounds

 

Horsham kicked poorly but managed to hold off Murtoa to win by seven points at City Oval. Minyip held up strongly to defeat the fast fading Jeparit whose fourth loss in succession left a big hole in their premiership hopes. Nhill had nil goals on the board at half time and in a mistake ridden afternoon were eventually crushed by Stawell 29 goals to five. Dimboola got the four points against Warracknabeal and climbed into the top five. Meanwhile, former Dimboola product 17 year old Larry Watson debuted for Essendon against Geelong at Kardinia Park. He played in the centre and kicked a goal for the Bombers in their win against the Cats. In two years time his younger brother Tim, at age 15, would make his debut for Essendon.

 

Next week’s matches: Ararat host Dimboola, Minyip meet Rupanyup, Horsham play Stawell, Murtoa take on Warracknabeal and Nhill face Jeparit.

 

This episode’s featured player Garry Todd (Ararat)

 

 

Garry Todd was a key forward who played 260 senior games for Ararat in a career that started in 1973, ended in 1989 and included two premierships (1975 and 1986 as captain coach). He kicked bags of goals for the Rats, reaching 100 goals for the season on three occasions (1979, 1985, 1986). Garry coached Ararat for seven seasons, in three stints: 1981, 1984-87, 1995-96. He was awarded life membership of the Ararat Football Club in 1978 and the Wimmera League, which he represented multiple times, in 2003.

 

Garry Todd later served as president of the football club from 1998 to 2004 taking on the position at a time when the club was precariously in debt. Ararat’s 1999 “gloom to glory” premiership was an amazing turn around for the club that was fighting to get back in the black. On a shoestring budget, Todd and his new committee focused on recruiting local players who were prepared to play for next to nothing. They stormed through the season defeating Minyip-Murtoa in the grand final denying the ‘Burras’ a fourth flag in succession, a record Ararat itself achieved in the 1950s. Indicative of the club’s strong playing stocks, the Rats Reserves team also won the premiership that year.

 

Ararat has gone on to be a very successful Wimmera League club in the new millennium, thanks in no small measure to Garry Todd. Ararat is in Garry Todd’s blood!

 

The Farrer League

 

Round up

 

Henty enjoyed a win over Wagga, and in doing so, sounded a September warning to the top two Farrer League clubs – Wagga and North Wagga. TR-YC easily accounted for MCU in the battle of the ‘combines’. Holbrook kept the door open on a finals berth with a win over Lockhart. Collingullie took the points in a high scoring game against Temora, while North Wagga were forced to fight hard to keep Culcairn at bay.

 

Next week’s match of the day: Temora v TR-YC

 

Next episode’s featured players: The Temora ‘six pack’: Gary McDougall, Wayne Krause, Peter Clarke, Allan Breust, Peter Gilchrist and Bruce Firman.

 

 

In the VFL

In the heavyweight battle between the two top sides, Hawthorn and Carlton, spectators were treated to a thrilling match, but were given little indication of the premiership favourite after only four points separated the sides at the final siren. St Kilda kept its place in the top five with a 31 point win over Fitzroy. “Good” Richmond showed up at the MCG and easily accounted for Collingwood. Melbourne got the four points against lowly South Melbourne, while Essendon overpowered Geelong in the second half to win by 15 points.

 

Doug Wade, 33, was in sparkling form at Arden Street and showed everyone that there was plenty of football left in the old legs. North Melbourne won the game convincingly over Footscray with ‘Schimma’ best on ground, ahead of Davis, Dench, Cable, Chisnall, Henshaw and Wade. The Kangaroos stood in fourth place, six wins behind ladder leaders the Hawks.

 

 

Meanwhile …

 

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Opposition Leader Malcolm Fraser shared the same platform at a migrant rally in  Sydney . Unsurprisingly, the Liberal leader complained about how the PM, in his words,  “went on and on and on and on. ” Famously, the pair accompanied by their wives, would share a taxi many years later, much to everyone’s surprise after the events of November 1975.

 

In Sydney Rugby League games: Easts 26 d. St George 21; Canterbury 4 drew with Souths 4; Parramatta 30 d. Cronulla 14; Penrith 15 d. Balmain 13; Manly 24 d. Norths 10; Newtown 19 d. Wests 7. Easts, Manly, St George, Canterbury and Cronulla made up the top five.

 

 

 

Read more episodes of A Season in the Country – 1975 in the Wimmera and Farrer Leagues HERE 

 

To read about Geelong’s Record Run, click HERE.

 

Peter also wrote about St. Kilda’s premiership season in his 1966 and All That series. You can read that HERE.

 

 

To return to our Footy Almanac home page click HERE.

 

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